This I know. However, when one looks at the dictionary definition of "evil"

Evil
1 a) morally bad or wrong; wicked; depraved b) resulting from or based on conduct regarded as immoral !an evil reputation"
2 causing pain or trouble; harmful; injurious
3 offensive or disgusting !an evil odor"
4 threatening or bringing misfortune; unlucky; disastrous; unfortunate !an evil hour"

the second most common definition indeed agrees that harm = evil. Plus, what hyzmarca said

Perception does not equal reality, nor does a large number of believers make something correct (example - the belief that the Earth was the center of the universe). You may dislike the phrase, but the analogy is very apt (I've had many discussions on this topic).

That is one case of religious discrimination I'd be all for

Well, if the Book of Revelations clearly declared that the Anti-Christ will win and that all Christians would burn for eternity in a lack of fire, I'd think that classical Stanism would be an extremely popular religion ("We get to perform all the fun sexual perversions and will be reward for it in hell, count me in") Evangelicals would be out there performing public bestialities in the name of our infernal lord and savior, that is for sure.


The Norse religion is rather unique in the fact that its gods are destined to lose the final battle. But, that is due to its glorification of martial values. Any religion which glorifies peace and peaceful values must ensure that its deity will win in the end, or else the members of that faith are just being doormats.

and that's got very little to do with your response to Eleazar. the idea that the holy spirit/god does evil "as defined as harm" isn't useful or relevant unless you're discaring what the bible has to say about evil anyway.

IIRC Eleazar's point was that abilities granted by the Holy Spirit (or the HS itself) couldn't be used to/wouldn't cause harm (from the context). Eleazer stated "Not only that, but these powers can also be used for evil, which is not something a Biblical miracle, wonder, or gift would allow. All judeochristian religions believe, with possibly the exception of Islam, that such things are workings of the Holy Spirit; He can only be good"

In normal conversation, when folk say something is "used for evil" it generally implies that it is used in a harmful fashion. Thus I would say my response is very relevant to Eleazar's point.

As for discarding what the bible says about evil, yes I am. For several reasons, the first being that in the bible "evil" is defined solely as anything that displeases YHVH (as your own noting of the genocides, etc implies) - it has no objective or even consistent standard. Secondly, I am discarding the bible because it has no bearing on reality (and by extension what Christian magic would be like in SR). And lastly, I am discarding the bible's take on evil because I am not a Christian and thus it holds no special place or authority for me.

Why does this matter in (what is supposed to be) a discussion about religion in SR?

it wouldn't matter, and you'd be correct about the general terminology, except that you yourself kept the bible's definition of evil in the discussion. which is my whole point--you say "the bible agrees with" you, and then you use a non-biblical definition for your terms. yes, the bible clearly depicts god visiting harm on people, and so if you define "evil" as "harm" god does evil. the bible also clearly depicts god favoring those who worship satan, if you define "worshipping satan" as "obeying the word of god".

That was a comment Mfb - something to be taken or ignored at leisure, not an argument or point I was trying to make. There is a difference. And you will recall I trust that I did not start the religious debate in this thread, merely commented on the more...noteworthy...points therein.

I took my definition of evil (=harm) from Eleazar's context. In stating "the bible agrees with me" I meant that the bible clearly shows YHVH causing harm, and thus by Eleazar's implied meaning, evil. How so does this chain of reasoning predicate a necessary reliance on a biblical definition of evil?

Perhaps I read Eleazar's implied meaning wrong, in which case he can feel free to correct me, but I do not see how that is the case.

Yes, as hyzmarca pointed out. Isaiah 45:7

The "ridiculous analogy" tactic certainly is popular around here, isn't it?

Regardless, this point is not relevant to the point of this thread (that I can see). Thus, I ask that it please be dropped.

Is the population increasing or decreasing or staying the same? 1% may vary.

The latter.

Numbers could be the same, but the definitions changed. You can certainly see the trend towards more granularity. There's more types of magic known.

And there's always the question of the sampling techniques.

you certainly read more into Eleazar's post than is in the text. he never defines what he means by evil, only that the holy spirit/god can't do it (he's wrong, there, and his point has been fairly thoroughly refuted by myself, hyzmarca, and you). the "harm" definition of evil was not, that i can see, ever implied by Eleazar.

the reason i'm spending so much time on an offhand statement is that the offhand statement relates to a larger argument in the thread--the question of whether or not god (or the power of god) can do evil. that's a difficult, controversial topic, and misrepresenting peoples' points--which is what i feel you've done with Eleazar's post--doesn't help.

Or you're just assuming that the authors of each of those statements were being extremely precise in their language.
It could be that every one of them simply intended the quoted part to be "magical", and they all happened to write it indifferent, imprecise ways.

It's also a question that I'm not sure is intimately tied to the game Shadowrun. This thread has been going along quite nicely; please keep it on topic, which is to say, related to Shadowrun.

Magic came relatively gradually, but UGE, first with elves and dwarves, then with orks and trolls, came more suddenly, and required more of an adjustment. The overall impression I get from the sourcebooks is that the major denominations had a knee-jerk reaction against magic, but settled down to more reasonable positions over time.


I think it's a good idea (on the developers' part) to leave the exact impact of the awakening on religious demographics up to individual GMs, rather than delve too deeply into the subject. Between half of the country being tribal land, and the boom in new age practices preceding the awakening (which is how they have hermeticism starting up so quickly), there is probably a lot more variety.

I haven't really thought too much about "what would logically happen", because the SR metaplot is too goofy in the first place. Things like the U.S. building death camps for Native Americans, those same Native Americans successfully waging a guerilla war against the U.S. and eventually taking over half of the country, the Catholics getting kicked out of Ireland by the elves, and many Protestant sects, for some reason, deciding to rejoin the Catholic Church.

I've always been of the impression that it was sort of an off/on thing - one day 1% ish of the world's population woke up with magical abilities (not that they could necessarily control those abilities though). Those like Howling Coyote and his disciples that followed the old magical traditions had a leg up and learned to control their abilities faster - really damn fast in the Ghost Dancers case. Which brings me to the next point.

Everybody saw magic being used. The Ghost Dance War that broke the back of the old US was fueled almost entirely by magic. That, plus incidents like the decimation of Tehran and the incident where a dragon attacking a passenger plane was fought off temporarily by a magic using passenger put magic right in everyone's living room, all the time (if modern 24 hour news channels are any analogy, which I think they would be).

Yes, I'm very aware of the term new religious movements, and with the faddish potential of such - my religious and philosophical leanings don't diminish my ability to recognize the obvious or to research and read after all And I truthfully don't find such a concept very dismaying at all, for a number of reasons.

In relation to the Sixth World though, I would venture that religious traditions that came to terms with magic quickly and easily - namely paleo and neopagan religions, plus the Eastern traditions (I would think) - got a real shot in the arm in terms of validity and legitimacy due to the Awakening. Perhaps to the point where they there joined the ranks of mainstream religion (as SR would seem to imply).

I sincerely doubt that it is certain. In any case, I have stated my logic behind the comment and would like to make it clear that I am not trying to misrepresent anyone (that is one of the reasons I use quote-fu so extensively) - if that is indeed what I managed to somehow do, Eleazar has my apologies. Regardless, I think that - in lieu of Eleazar's clarification - that comes down to a matter of interpretation and as such cannot be resolved. Therefore, I respectfully request again that it be dropped, as like Dashifen I cannot see how the bolded portion applies to SR.

Perhaps you could tell me where it says this. I don't know of any location in the Bible it states God does evil. If God is evil and does evil, then he is not righteous. He is not a just god, nor a good one. In fact, if this is true, God is false. If God did in fact do evil, there isn't anything that would somehow make him magically unaccountable for it. The thing is, God's nature doesn't allow him to be evil. He just can't do evil. If God were to do evil, it would very well be evil. He would then be subject to sin and then He would have to have some sort of atonement for His sin. If God has truly done evil, then the judeochristian religions have no way to obtain righteousness because the very God that gives them that righteousness through atonement, is defiled and depraved of righteousness. Righteousness would have no real value because it would no longer be truly righteousness. Sin, evil, and other such things can not coexist with righteousness.

EDIT: Sorry Dashifen just caught the post, DOH. Though hopefully this will end all debate on what I was saying and any implications drawn for the post. Better to hear it from the horses mouth.

Hyzmarca quoted several places the bible states it explicitly on the bottom of page 4 this thread, and Mfb noted some places it is logically implied on the top of page 5 this thread. And for what it's worth, I think your conclusions are right. Not that that matters of course.

Indeed, and thank you.

I will disagree with the idea that it makes YHWH false.

Being omnipotent logically requires that one is responsible for everything. Evil is a subset of everything. If God did not do all evil, then he would not be omnipotent, just as he would not be omnipotent if he were not responsible for all good.
Assuming that YHWH is the only deity (once an absurd proposition, but no longer so) and is fully omnipotent, The Problem of Evil and its "solutions" are nothing more than cop-outs made by people who are either too narrow-minded or too weak to understand that wielding ultimate power places one above all notions of morality, that omnipotence is beyond good and evil. Nietzsche would have understood this, if not for his Atheism.

Looking at YHWH as one deity among many, I do believe that it is important to make distinctions between mortality, ethics, and law. The key here is that morality is subjective and ethics are are created by contracts. The Law, however, is neither subjective nor the result of a freely entered contract. YHWH chose to make a contract of sorts, a Covenant, with the Israelites. As such, he is ethically bound to do what is in their best interests when they abide by the terms of the Covenant and to punish them when they do not. However, the actions required by ethics and those required by morality are two different things, and YHWH is often ethically required to do some truly reprehensible things which make Adolph Hitler look like a morally upstanding person by comparison.
But, again, we must return to the law. Nothing that is illegal can be ethical. Ethics, being the result of contracts, are subordinate to the law. Sin is a violation of divine Law and YHWH cannot violate this law, no matter what evils He does. As such He cannot sin.

This does have a huge bearing on religion in Shadowrun, because of the "My God can beat up your God" defense. The entire point of the Israelite's faith, the very reason for their Covenant, is that YHWH is a grade A #1 asshander. He can beat entire pantheons single handedly. When the Israelites were in Egypt, he waltzed right down there, ripped the assess off of dozens of Egyptian deities, and then handed them their own asses. Later, he did the same thing to the Baals.
And unlike other deities who generally sit of their divine butts (once they've been reattached), YHWH got down and dirty and handed the asses of entire mortal armies.
And he's their asshander. He doesn't hand asses for anyone but the Israelites.

But, YHWH has been incredibly lazy and hands-off in recent years, without the massive genocides that served to inspire faith. When the Awakening came, the old Gods returned, and new Gods came with them. They endowed their chosen subjects with terrible and amazing powers. These servants and avatars do walk the Earth and they do kick butt. Their buttkicking powers serve to inspire their faithful, in the same way that YHWH once inspired his, by killing lots of people.

Now, while the legality of any genocide perpetrated by a deity or its avatars is unquestionable, the morality of it is a matter of debate. It is almost inevitable that the moral choices made by YHWH be brought into question and compared to the moral choices made by other deities whose existence has been revealed by the Awakening. People will choose their faith based on both demonstrated power and moral palatability. Obviously, people are unlikely to remain outwardly loyal to a deity if its chosen followers, shamanic magicians endowed by their deity, easily fall before the swords and magic of the shamanic chosen of other Gods. No one likes a loser and there is a huge difference between martyrdom and stupidity. Likewise, most people would refuse to follow a deity that they found morally reprehensible, though they might pay it lip service if it was truly so powerful that it could not be fought.

This is why the Catholic doctrine about magic is so brilliant. If all magic, including shamanic magic, is natural, rather than coming from the divine, then they don't have to explain how they can get their butts kicked by both Pagans and Atheists.

But those hardcore fundamentalists who follow Jesus as a Mentor Spirit and think all other magic is the work of the devil better kiss their asses goodbye, because one day a Thorite is going to crash their church, scream "I say thee, Nay!", and then beat them with a giant magical hammer until their butt-cheeks fall off.

Edit: Removed some sentences accidentally left over from a pre-post edit.

This passage uses "Ra" for the word evil. This is actually a different kind of evil, and is not evil in the moral sense. In English it would be similar if one were to wish evil upon another person. That phrase doesn't mean they wish Satan himself would pay them a visit. It means they wish that person calamity and despair. When "Ra" is used in passages such as:

Isaiah 45:7
Amos 3:6
Lamentations 3:38
Jeremiah 18:11
Ezekiel 20:25,26

It means calamity, despair, or adversity. In fact, the New King James Version uses the word calamity in Amos 3:6. Which is a literal word translation of the Bible. So, let us put this Amos verse in context, which you failed to do, and thus why you came to the wrong conclusion of its meaning. This verse, if you actually read it in context, is talking about the Lord warning His people before He brings His punishment on Israel. He brings this warning through His prophets as it says in verse 7. The people should be afraid of the trumpet because in the days of this period a trumpet was used as a warning. Much like air raid sirens declare a bombing in our time. This whole chapter is dealing with Israel forsaking God and turning their backs on Him. Amos, the prophet, is being used by God to warn His people before His righteous judgement is put upon Israel. Amos 3:6 is actually a direct warning to Israel of what will happen if Israel continues in their sin and refuses the grace of God through repentance.

You said, "Nothing that is illegal can be ethical." This is actually wholly untrue. Using the Nazi scenario, if Adolf Hitler made it law that all Jews must die, that would be unethical. There for if I were to do what was illegal, and not kill Jews, I would be ethical yet an outlaw. Even lawyers that follow the law have to answer to the ethics committee for unethical behavior, no matter how lawful their abuse might have been.

Morality is subjective only in your philosophy. You say these things as if they are absolute truths. In the judeochristian religions they have absolute truths that define morality. Morality is fully objective. There is a clear distinction between right and wrong. In a world with no absolutes to define morals, then yes, morality is subjective. Morality can be determined by nature. However, nature is both cruel and kind. Morality can be determined by feeling. However feelings have a tendency towards self-serving. Morality can be determined by logic, though logic knows little mercy. Without absolutes on which to base one's morality it is completely subjective, because morality can be based upon anything. Everyone's morals can be right, and you have no standard on which to judge them. It isn't truly wrong to kill unless you get caught. If the person had it coming to them, then you are justified in your killing. If they deserved to die, then you were within your rights.

I would insult you as you have done me, veiled or not, but such antics would prove nothing, nor do anything to further prove any of my points. In fact, I would think it makes one seem less valid, to have to resort to that kind of argument.

As far as SR4 goes, I stick with my original statement. Judeochristian belief does not mesh well with Shadowrun. If God truly did exist, and had the same power those of the religion believed him to have, the game would be broken in terms of magic, and wouldn't even fit the judeochristian beliefs of what magic is. The only way to make God fit into Shadowrun is to degrade His power, thus not making Him the same god of the judeochristian religions. The only judeochristian religions that would be accepting of magic as presented in Shadowrun would be ones that ignored wholly parts of the Bible and one's that were very liberal.

Everything else you said in terms of Shadowrun seems to just be explaining the way things currently are in Shadowrun and your personal opinion on how judeochristian religions might view getting a butt-kicking. I can't say that I care enough to give a response.

Who or what made the Law he is speaking of?

And in what dictionary is it defined that Ethics is tightly coupled to Law? I can't find it in any I've checked. Ethics are no more objective than morals. In fact, most sources seem to freely interchange the use of the two words.

But the "magic is a natural force" explanation makes the most sense, really. Yeah, all of these people are summoning the power of Thor, or whatever, but people can summon the power of Barney the purple dinosaur just as easily. Or work magic because they have a logical framework that they think it fits into, with no religion involved at all.

I think the most ironic aspect of this is that most Christians will be in the most agreement, on the nature of magic, with atheists.

Sorry, had to.

Judeochristian beliefs don't mesh particularly well with our current world either, take that as you will.

I suspect who it is going to convince will be more along the lines of education, experience and cultural background, not so much along religious lines.

As an educated Catholic, I suspect I would be able to accept magic as a natural force. Meanwhile, a 'Catholic' practitioner of Santeria in Brazil would say it's most certainly a divine force. Simultaneously, a Catholic near the Baltic Sea might say Christian magic is divine and some magic is from Satan, with most other magic being natural.

This one I think is very believable, mostly for political reasons. Among Protestant churchs, there are a certain amount of fluidity. You can go to a Methodist,, Lutheran, Anglican or Catholic service, and it all counts as 'going to church'. If all of a sudden the Lutheran church closed its doors, there are a lot of people, including Lutheran political leaders, who would go either Methodist or Catholic. If the Lutheran church is on the brink of closing its doors, it would more likely put itself under the wing of a similarly-minded church than allow itself to simply break apart, scattering its flock. This has relatively little to do with magic, except in the sense that it would cause a big shake-up that would threaten the political stability of a lot of religious organizations.

Where is that said? Could you please quote?

Because we haven't seen Catholics reunite with their Orthodox brethren in SR, and that would be the first reunification.

It would also massively change things in virtually all of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Greece, Russia, etc.

Certainly would be an excellent apologetic tool

Hence a diminishing number of fundamentalists.

It could easily be argued that a number of neo-pagan religions see magic as a morally-neutral natural force.

Which means I was correct in my statement that evil=harm in the fashion you were using it. Which is part of the definition of evil, and since intentionally causing harm is generally speaking a morally evil thing it also brings it back to the definition of evil you said you were using when I asked for clarification. Etc etc ad nauseam.

Talk about a statement reinforcing what it was supposed to negate

As do you - I fail to see the problem with either.

Heh. Dumpshock =/ consensus. Ever

I would presume in the same manner they do now - likely the "my stuff isn't magic, it's God given gifts. You're the one that does evil magic!" routine that many fundamentalists (myself included at one time) spout.

I shouldn't, but +1 karma

I think it's from the Tir Nan Og sourcebook, referring to a few Irish Protestant denoms. I'll go digging, see if i can find it.